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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237750">The Lagoon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/taran/pseuds/taran'>taran</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>They say [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Case Fic, Gen, Of a sorts, Soft Magic, inhuman!jaskier, this fic may be tonally more in line with the books?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:47:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237750</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/taran/pseuds/taran</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They say there is a man in the forest with lilies in his skin.</p><p>*</p><p>Geralt goes to investigate a local myth and encounters an unfamiliar spirit.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia &amp; Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>They say [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>129</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It all began with a <a href="https://iamtaran.tumblr.com/post/614218942940069888/megarah-moon-imagine-being-a-mermaid-living-in">tumblr post</a> of a beautiful photo of a lagoon...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*</p><p>They say there is a young man in the forest who smells of lilies, with eyes as blue as the waters of the lagoon. Young women go with red ribbons in their hair and men with bundles of buttercups and lupines, to see him slide from the waters under the moon. </p><p>They say he watches, at first, and they all agree. His gaze feels like a cool finger on the back of your neck. Curious, lighter than a thought. </p><p>“But he’s not shy,” the girl rushes to assure him, as if his thinking wrongly were the last thing she could bear. She turns her face away to smile a moment, flushed in the warm lamplight of the tavern. </p><p>And that is the strange thing of this town that speaks so softly of spirits and monsters. She sits with Geralt in her red skirts and embroidered apron, with flowers done up in her hair for the festival nights; and for all he is scarred and hideous next to her, pallor next to her warmth; for all he could wrap both hands around her with all the speed and strength witchers are so feared for-- for all that, she sits and talks to him without a flinch of revulsion. She smiles in the firelight, looks at him aside through her black lashes as if she reveals a secret, and continues, “He is always so warm to his visitors. He smiles and entertains for hours. He sings the most beautiful songs-- sometimes about those who visit.” The memory pleases her greatly, he can see.</p><p>“And the ribbons? The flowers? Why do you bring them?”</p><p>“Because he likes them,” she says. Perhaps seeing something of his thoughts in his face, she shakes her head. “He doesn’t ask for them, Ser Witcher. It is just that we all know. I’m not sure who was the first to realize. Perhaps one of our mothers wore a ribbon in her hair on her wedding day and wandering in the forest found the lagoon; or our grandfathers pinned a flower in his vest to impress a lover, only to find him instead. ”</p><p>"Does he ask for anything?” Geralt presses. Ribbons and flowers are all well enough, he thinks, and harmless. Many spirits ask for offerings. Who can say exactly why they choose what they choose, save that it pleases them. But Geralt has seen too many spirits whose appetites grow the more they are given, like an empty stomach fed only on water. Eventually, what is given is no longer enough. Eventually, it may be that something is taken instead.</p><p>Again privy to his thoughts, the pretty youth purses her lips at him and shakes her head. But then she pauses, eyes flicking aside as if with a thought. Geralt nods, more to himself than her.</p><p>“Not-” she begins, flustered, and smoothes a hand over her skirts until they lie as they should. “Not for any thing or promise, serah, not like a faerie in a tale who asks for your name or the color of your eyes.”</p><p>“What does he ask for?” Geralt asks with practiced patience. His tone soothes her.</p><p>“A kiss, sometimes.” She looks at him-- at his hard face softened as much as he can make it, his beastly eyes, his black leathers done through with studs that he had wrapped under a threadbare cloak yet which still advertises his profession clearly-- and again he is startled when she does not balk but lights one hand on his forearms quick and soft as a bird, there and then gone. “A touch, sometimes,” she explains, and then blushing further says no more, for she doesn’t need to. </p><p>Geralt is careful to keep his expression open and calm, so that she might not mistake any shift for judgment. “And it is freely these things are given? There is no feeling of dizziness, perhaps, like when waking? Or an unnatural tiredness that follows?”</p><p>“No!” </p><p>“May I see your hand, lady?” She furrows her brows at him, the first hint of trepidation. “I will not harm you, I simply wish to place something in your palm a moment.”</p><p>She gives him her hand, and from his belt pouch he pulls an engraved iron coin. It is not how he believed, however. It sits dull and lifeless in her palm. She allows him a few other such tests, watching with thinly veiled interest as he produces a small vial and smudges a drop on each of his eyelids, only to look at her and shake his head. Another oil smelling of calendula and rosemary he takes and, with a murmured apology, applies with a thumb to her freckled forehead. She smiles as he does so, dimpling with embarrassment as the other tenants of the tavern watch on poorly concealed. They must be her neighbors, even her kin. She will bask in the importance brought her by this examination for weeks. Likely, it will be a story for her to tell for years.</p><p>A few more such simple tests reveal nothing, leaving him puzzled in his seat. The maid pats his hand as if he requires comfort and asks consolingly, “Will you be staying for the festival tonight and tomorrow? It would be a shame to have come so far for nothing, and even witchers must want rest and music.”</p><p>Geralt does not think to tell her that there is not rest enough in all the world for he and his brothers. Regardless, her bold offer inspires real regret as he replies, “I would be ill company for a festival, even with such friendly welcome.” She looks at him a moment, unsure, only to see even as he realizes he does it that he smiles crookedly, charmed against his own will. </p><p>They linger for some time so that Geralt can ask a few more of his questions, in between her reassurances that he would be welcome if he so chooses. By the end of the afternoon, however, he knows nothing more useful than he had already found. There is a man in the woods who smells of lilies and has been young since their grandfathers were so, with blue eyes like clear water and long, smooth limbs, who sings sweetly and joyously and, sometimes, a little sadly when the moon is full. A friendly spirit with soft lips who will give advice and fantastical tales of magic in exchange for a flower or ribbon. A spirit who kisses gently enough that kind maids and broad-shouldered farmers and crones alike smile secretly to themselves when they remember it. A spirit loved by an entire village.</p><p>Geralt stables Roach at the inn for the night. In the eventide the town glows with torches and bonfires and brightly dyed garlands of cloth. The people he passes glow as well in their folk costumes of heavily embroidered blouses under black velvet jackets and vests, picked through with flowers made of expensive silk thread. He thinks for a moment that it could be nice to stay for the festivities the coming night. Could he sit on the fringes of the dancing and laughing in his dull black shirtsleeves drink mead with impertinent youths who don’t flinch away from him? Perhaps allow himself to be cajoled into one of the athletic dances with the men around the fire, leaping and twirling and kicking?</p><p>Ah, well, he sighs as he steps into the tree line. It all depends on what he finds in the lagoon. He doubts the girl would smile quite so sweetly at him should he need to exorcise her sweet spirit, the man with lilies in his skin.</p><p>*</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Geralt meets the spirit.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*</p><p>Amidst the trees, night falls rapidly as if dropped from numb hands, and in it a witcher spears through the forest. For within the trees there is a lagoon– tucked not within but behind the heart of the forest, pressed there like something precious.</p><p>The trees when Geralt enters whisper with a strange magic in their leaves, soft in the humid green air. There is no comfort in the sound, nor unease; simply an awareness of awareness. It is not a familiar sense. For Geralt who has seen the dryads of Brokilon, he knows as he breathes in no scent of crushed willow leaves that this magic comes not from them or any of their kin. The air tastes of breezes from far off places, and rests upon the forest like a cool hand.</p><p>The further he treks through the dense, sweet-smelling thicket, the greater comes the feeling of being known. Geralt hikes through the deepening shadows as the sun sets through the canopy with his eyes always moving, but he sees no sign of spirit or lagoon. When real darkness creeps in among the trunks and boughs and still he has not found the waters the people had spoken of, he reaches into his bag and finds a Cateye potion. The familiar pain in his eyes, his veins, barely registers any longer– though, that is a lie. Pain is always pain even when it is more familiar than pleasure.</p><p>Into the night he walks.</p><p>The time is nearing when Geralt knows the potion’s effects will wear off when the smell of the sea reaches him. It curls its finger across the glen and a slight rise beyond, beckoning. He climbs it with his mouth opened to draw the air over his palette as he scents it– the heavy, familiar tang of the ocean so strange when mixed with the sweet pine hummus of the forest. Surmounting the rise, he pauses.</p><p>The lagoon seeps a blue so sweet he feels nearly dizzy, looking down into a late-afternoon sky. It takes him a few heartbeats to register anything else.</p><p>If the summer forest had been humid, here the air swelters, as hot and close as a warm cloth. As he climbs down the hill towards the lagoon, the light off the waters startles him at first. Then he remembers what one villager had described to him and sees, yes, the waters are lit as if in a warm sun, for all he knows there is a bare sliver of a moon left in the sky beyond the trees. It casts the area around it into a pale glow. </p><p>The forest had hummed with magic, but this place sings. The wolf amulet lain across his cuirass buzzes in confirmation. Curious, he stoops warily to the edge amidst the drooping ferns and dripping ivy and dips a hand in to find the lagoon lined with a fine white sand like he has never seen so far north. Salt stings the various cuts and scrapes on his knuckles that a long week’s riding and living off the land had given him. Even so, he brings a finger to his tongue to confirm.</p><p>The villagers had instructed him to sit by the edge of the pool. The sense of vulnerability irks him. Finally he settles to kneel as if in meditation. He would much prefer to stand, but at least knelt he can still easily draw the silver blade on his back.</p><p>Surveying the waters, Geralt casts back on all the books on spirits and minor gods and fae he has read in his long life and thinks he has never encountered a spirit like this before. A piece of the sea pressed into the temperate mountains and forest of Redania. He wonders at the source of its power, its history, and as he waits he knows he will likely never know. </p><p>He does not wait long.</p><p>He feels it first. A drip of curiosity slides cool down his neck. Knelt as he is, Geralt does not lift his head, but watches the still waters under his brows. He knows it has come when the smell of lilies suffuses him all of once.</p><p>“You aren’t one of mine,” says a husky voice. </p><p>Despite himself, Geralt jumps. The spirit drapes himself lazily over the edge of the lagoon not an arm’s length away. As warm and unabashed as a lover, he presses one full, flush cheek to his pillowing arm and smiles up at Geralt with barefaced curiosity. Geralt finds himself speechless.</p><p>A spirit is as a spirit must; it takes form from purpose. A spirit of love wears unbearable beauty. A spirit of violence or vengeance twists into the misbegotten nightmare of human hate and pain, with fangs enough for both. A spirit that beguiles for the gifts and adoration of humanity wears something yet greater altogether, for neither beauty nor fear could ever inspire the devotion it seeks. The hearts of man are imperfect, and drawn to those things alike to them in some manner.  Even the least of fairy tales knows this.</p><p>The man with lilies in his skin wears something more striking than beauty or perfection. He has a jaw and cheeks too broad to be dainty, yet eyes too wide and lashed for harshness. The smoothness of his long arms, his neck and bare shoulders, outlines the drape of his hands over his round forearms. Where the glow that rises from the lagoon had startled, the light that gently emanates from his skin startles Geralt more. Geralt returns his gaze in tongue-bitten silence, as close to punch-stunned as a man who has not been struck can be.</p><p>But of all these things, it is his eyes which gave Geralt pause. <i>He’s not shy,</i> he hears the maid at the tavern say again and nearly snorts. Nothing could have prepared him for the directness of his gaze pointed like a weapon up into Geralt’s face. As blue as the lagoon, and too human.</p><p>“Are you shy, I wonder?” The spirit muses, and seeing how Geralt looks at him his lips curl playful. His dark hair lies over his brow drying half-curling in the warm air. He flicks it away and arches his neck in a way that is almost obscene so that his bold jaw juts forward. “Your eyes are not shy. Are you mute?”</p><p>“One of yours?” Geralt rumbles. The spirit cocks his head for a moment before realization dawns.</p><p>“Oh! Before.” He waves an inconsequential hand. “A turn of speech.”</p><p>“Is it?” </p><p>If he hears the danger lurking beneath the even tone, the spirit does not show it. He rests his cheek once again so he might gaze out under his lashes. The look lands like a physical touch; Geralt almost wishes for a moment he had not knelt so close. He smothers the urge to shift.</p><p>“Did you come here to speak with me, then, black eyes? How beautiful they are. Black like onyx, or a starless night. Do you get many compliments on them?”</p><p>“Too many to count,” Geralt says dryly. The spirit perks his languid head up off his arms, smiling. Geralt stares; beneath the downy hair of his arms, the spirit has freckles like any farmer.</p><p>“Ah, but he jokes! And your voice as lovely as your eyes.” Geralt, who has been told he has a voice like an executioner’s block, does snort this time. The man <i>tsks</i> forlornly. “Do you not think so? Then I shall think it enough for the both of us. As a great admirer of beauty, I find myself the better fitted to make such declarations,” he says loftily.</p><p>“Is that what you are, then?” He man cocks his head indulgently, lips quirked. “An admirer of beauty?” Geralt asks. “Or… a purveyor? A collector?” He hears the undercurrent there now. The spirit draws back in apparent displeasure and sniffs, hands twitching to life to flutter in Geralt’s direction.</p><p>“Well, I shouldn’t like to be called anything like that,” he huffs. “Beauty cannot be owned or collected, only experienced. It must be cherished.” His gaze slides from Geralt’s face up to his hair, then pointedly down the set of his shoulders until like trailing fingers they run down and back up the V of his kneeling thighs. Only once they have completed their route do they flick back up to meet his own. “Admired.” </p><p>Geralt keeps his expression neutral. The spirit watches him, so obviously waiting, buzzing with anticipation. Geralt does and says nothing and simply watches.</p><p>For every moment the silence grows, so seems to grow the spirit’s fascination. The air around them shimmers, and insects hum in the trees, and Geralt can smell nothing but lilies so strongly that he tastes it. As if he senses the thought, the spirit wets his lips with a flash of pink tongue. Geralt notes the movement– and does nothing. It seems to be the final straw, for the spirit breaks the silence first. </p><p>“Most who come here and bring me their gifts wish to speak, yet you are silent,” he notes lightly. Geralt grunts.</p><p>“I have brought you nothing.”</p><p>The spirit twitches only to settle immediately, as if he had not meant to betray his impatience.</p><p>Geralt sees it then. Something ravenous and not quite human, something insatiable kept just nearly out of sight, yawning open in the dark pits of his pupils. He leans forward with his chin on his arms yet Geralt cannot for a moment be fooled to think him as casual as the movement suggests.</p><p>“Have you not a ribbon, or a flower? The men bring me lupines or marigolds or buttercups,” he presses.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“A ring? Perhaps a polished wand of fine wood?”</p><p>“None.”</p><p>Despite his own carefully measured responses, Geralt prepares himself for the disrespect to irk. Spirits, especially those used to or at least expecting of offerings, are notorious for their fits of pique when the right motions are not made, ribbons not left, prayers not murmured. Yet as he watches, the spirit only tucks that little hunger away and smiles like Puck himself, crinkling delicate crow’s feet about his eyes, his already bright eyes. Geralt watches as they grow brighter yet, as if a cloud had moved away on the perpetual summer’s day caught within them and the surrounding waters. Aware of his attention, the spirit flicks a coy finger at him.</p><p>“And yet for some reason you have come. I wonder why?” he hums. Without warning he heaves his torso up from the waters onto the rock, scattering water and lily scent. </p><p>With the speed and thoughtless motion of years, Geralt’s hand flies to his sword. In the sudden hum and zap of the too hot air, he knows his mistake immediately and freezes. </p><p>But the motion cannot be taken back. Perched now frozen himself half on the mossy stone, the spirit examines him with an intense, blade-bright knowing, thrumming in a way that cannot be heard or seen but only felt. Geralt feels it in his teeth. The chain around his neck jerks.</p><p>“I know what you are,” murmurs the spirit with sudden fervor. His gaze falls heavily on the Wolf mark. Geralt scowls, silent. The ready muscles of his arm tighten until they begin to tremble, but still he does not draw. He does not have a reason yet. There is no reason. <i>He has no reason.</i> No– </p><p>The spirit reaches out a hand. Just for a moment, as if to touch the medallion flashing in the fey light at Geralt’s breast. Every muscle in his back tenses, but no touch comes. The questing hand flashes back and settles restlessly, fingertips fluttering and tapping excitedly in the moss, the only movement in the lagoon. Only once he is sure he will not reach out again does Geralt force himself to breathe steadily through the clench of his jaw. The spirit takes in every single twitch and shift as he does.</p><p>“A witcher,” he breathes in a register lower than before, and grins. <i>“Oh.”</i> </p><p>*</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The spirit tells Geralt of his creation.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*</p><p>Ever so slowly, daring eyed and unblinking, the man with lilies in his skin watches Geralt watch him as he pulls himself from the water. </p><p>For Geralt, who does not for a moment release his gaze, or his sword hand, he catches only the barest impression of scales sliding silkly from the water. In the air they melt into more and more pale skin, until the spirit lounges most deceptively, nakedly human on his mossy stone. A tumble of long lines and languidly loose elbows and knees. He leans forward ever so artfully, inviting Geralt’s eyes to drop. They don’t. </p><p>“I’ve heard stories of your kind, witcher,” he says with air of a man sharing gossip.</p><p>Geralt says nothing.</p><p>“As personable as I’ve been led to believe. What could have brought you here?”</p><p>“I have heard stories,” Geralt says. Slowly, “Like you.”</p><p>Mischief. “Oh? And what have you learned?”</p><p>“That I don’t know what you are.”</p><p>“But you know what I do?”</p><p>Geralt cocks his head just so, to better see the planes of his face in the upside-down light. At times like this, with the Cateye potion in full effect, everything searing in his sight burns more vibrantly, more starkly, more. Against his background of wetly green vines and the smarting bright waters, his velvet shadowed moss, the spirit rests like a pearl. He is beautiful; but any witcher knows better than to trust beauty. His beauty tempts, and it is meant to tempt. Geralt knows better than to be tempted.</p><p>“Listen to woes. Sing songs. Tell pretty stories.” He tilts his head yet further. “Kiss pretty villagers.” The spirit smiles, there and gone. </p><p>“I do that,” he admits, and says nothing more, though that inviting smile still lingers around his eyes. Geralt hums.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Why do I listen?” He slithers up on his haunches then-- or does he pour himself out?-- and of a height with Geralt he straightens nearly knee to knee, a parody of Geralt’s kneeling meditation. “Or why do I kiss them?”</p><p>Geralt ignores the provocation altogether and instead allows the silence to press his question. After far too long a pause, the spirit makes a show of his disappointment and sighs himself back onto his heels. </p><p>“Company, if you must know. They bring a glimpse at the world beyond this lagoon.”</p><p>“And gifts,” Geralt says meaningfully. </p><p>He rolls his eyes. “Don’t mistake me, White Wolf. The gifts are just that-- non-binding, freely given, and inconsequential to the ones giving them.” He grins into Geralt’s face, pleased by whatever change he had caught there. Pleased by his own cleverness. “Yes, I know you. White hair, two very scary swords. I’ve heard of you, Geralt of Rivia, as you’ve heard of me.”</p><p>A clever spirit often means a vainglory one. Geralt raises two dispassionate eyebrows. “Yet I don’t know your name.”</p><p>“Perhaps you should have brought me a gift, then,” the spirit returns. Unblinking, moving slowly enough to see, he then curls his fingers in the chain around Geralt’s neck and lets his hand hang there beside the wolf like ornamentation. Geralt growls, and does not move. Two self-satisfied eyebrows jump and jig pointedly at him. </p><p>“Are you sure you haven’t anything?” the spirit wheedles, and chuckles when Geralt frowns severely at him. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know, I knew you wouldn’t believe me about the gifts. It really is nothing nefarious. I’m afraid I’ve just been spoiled by my dear hearts, is all. They are much more appreciative than you.”</p><p>They are getting too far off topic.</p><p>“That’s what you want. Their appreciation.”</p><p>He huffs a breath as if Geralt is being particularly dull. “No. That is what I earn.”</p><p>“Then what do you want?”</p><p>“Why the interest?” He tilts his head in a coquettish mirror of Geralt’s posture, just this side of mean and grinning with it. “What do <i>you</i> want?”</p><p>“Answers.”</p><p>“So you can decide whether or not to kill me.”</p><p>In the sudden still and chill, Geralt says nothing. After a moment of calculating, he takes the risk and inclines his head. Just enough.</p><p>Though no describable change shifts his face or the curlicues of his always near-laughing mouth-- a twilight, in the eyes. The stars that had sparkled there recede to a winter’s distance. Wrath, or pain? From the bob of his throat, the latter. </p><p>The grip on his chain shifts. “I’ll give you your answers if you’ll give me mine,” bargains the spirit with purposeful, dishonest lightness. “Tell me, were you called here to kill me? By one of,” <i>mine</i>, his lips shape, but only breath escapes. Geralt, who has heard many a man take a dagger to the back, finds himself… uncomfortable. Momentarily. But even a spirit can playact, he reminds himself. </p><p>Firmly, Geralt removes the spirit’s bold hand from his person. The spirit doesn’t fight, or blink, and no magic shifts, and the lagoon is quiet. His unwavering gaze so close could almost discomfit, were Geralt a lesser man. Thankfully, he is not a man at all.</p><p>“No,” Geralt says at last. There is no harm in sharing the truth, after all. And better to say it than risk turning an unknown spirit’s wrath on the good villagers. “They did their best to convince me of your good nature. I came to investigate only because I heard rumors in a neighboring hamlet.”</p><p>The admission gentles him immediately. He hides his relief in a turned gaze. Geralt lets him without comment. It gives Geralt the opportunity to observe every twitch of his eyelashes, and his fingers where they have risen to his neck in a mimic of human vulnerability. (Or is it genuine?) He rests it there only a moment, there and gone. When he turns back, his good humor has returned. </p><p>He looks at Geralt then in earnest. He cannot say how he knows it. It weighs differently. Without the charade of before he looks, brow to chin, shoulders to leather-clad hands. Whether he searches out some hidden aspect or believes himself possessed of its secret already. Geralt wants-- no. He wants nothing, he tells himself, and does not twitch. There is no want when his duty is to watch, to understand, to wait for any first hint of magic or ill intent. He has come to either kill or let free. Clenched fist, Geralt-- does. Does not.</p><p>Blue eyes meet his own once more. The spirit settles, stills, and splits open like waters around sharp stone.</p><p>“Freedom,” he says. “It’s what I want. To leave this lagoon.”</p><p>“Hmm,” doesn’t say Geralt, who knows at times that no words are better than too many. It works now.</p><p>“Don’t misunderstand,” the spirit rattles out breathlessly, “I love every one of my visitors. I remember every one of them that has ever come to me, by accident or by purpose, and I have been here a long, long time, witcher. Since before the village existed. There are some who come to me today whose great grandmothers I remember in their youth. There are some who live only because I whispered secret courage to their parents when shyness or misunderstanding might have kept them apart. No, their company and the time they spend with me, the work of inspiring their joy and seeing it on their faces, or tasting it on their sighs. It has been reward enough for me. Only...” He hesitates. “I began to dream of leaving only when they... gave in return.”</p><p>It takes Geralt a moment. Eyes on his, then down to the silver chain, as tactile as his hands. <i>Perhaps you should have brought me a gift, then.</i> Geralt purses his lips.</p><p>“The stories,” he surmises. “The gifts.”</p><p>His teeth slash open a white flash. “You were listening. I want to leave these waters. I want to see the world and find the stories myself.”</p><p>Surprised, Geralt chews wordlessly on the admission. He had begun to believe him a tethered spirit. Something of the forest and mountains, something strange, for sure, but grounded in the land. Books and tomes and lectures, and he has never heard of such a spirit wanting to leave. The power that would take; and from what source? He thinks of the trusting, besotted villagers and nearly grimaces. Doesn’t, only by strength of will, and instead asks,</p><p>“How?” </p><p>A frown tells him he did not hide his suspicions well enough.</p><p>“...You wanted to know what I am,” he says at last. Geralt grunts something like agreement. “Let me tell you. Then you will understand.” </p><p>He goes quiet, for longer than he ever has to this point. Then, he tells his story.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <i>“Centuries ago, this forest stretched untouched and unbroken all the way to the coast. Even the Aen Seidhe did not touch these trees, for they knew as surely as you must that when they looked, the forest looked back. It was so looking that She saw me.”</i>
</p><p>(“She,” Geralt says.)</p><p>
  <i>“She. She has no name. She is the forest. Far more ancient than any spirit I’ve ever encountered. I’ve always imagined She is as old as the spheres, though I can’t know. I’ve never seen Her, not as you see me. She is too grand to have a humanoid form. Like too many birds against the sky that by filling it become greater than it.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Centuries ago, when the forest still reached down to the sea, before the humans too dumb to magic’s song to hear its cries cut back the forest’s edge to build their cities and towns there. A traveling bard wandered the wild lands. Upon finding the ocean, he fell in love with the blue of the water and the call of the gulls, and sitting by a sheltered cove composed a song. He picked up his lute and played. The waters there had never heard such music, not by lute or human voice, and they fell in love in return. He did not know, of course. But he played, and he sang, and it was the first song there sung. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“And as he sang the bard dreamed of chime-voiced mermaids floating like lilies in the waves; and as the cove gazing up at him sang back and dreamed of sweet-face bards with gentle hands; all the while, the song echoed and returned greater each time from the throats of the rocks and waves --light that runs between crystals and multiplying grows brighter, like that. And the song grew; and the bard played, not knowing he sang a duet; and they sang with emotion deep enough to touch that stuff at the heart of all things, be they rocks or oceans or stars, the stuff of Chaos; and the song was the first; and the song was me.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“That is what I am.”</i>
</p><p>*</p><p>Listening, Geralt thinks that it is not the least likely thing he has ever heard. There have always been tales of spirits born from emotion if it is great enough. From Firsts, too, for they have power. Old tales from the elves recall a breathless time Before when the Aen Seidh knew only peace across years unbroken by suffering and hardship. In the stories, a betrayal between siblings saw its end. From the first death was all Death born, in all its many visages, its spirits and gods. Witchers had spent the past two centuries amassing all knowledge of such phenomena. Geralt had read every tome in Kaer Morhen, and so knew they understood so very little of these spirits. Who was he to say that it is not possible?</p><p>Besides which… as he had told his story, just for a moment in the way of true things hidden in a shape mundane, Geralt had heard and seen. Gulls and waves grumbled and shrilled on the underside of his breath. </p><p>When he had first appeared, glowing and serene, Geralt had known his nature in part because he had looked for it. Now lit with the light of his own tale, recalling his creation, there could be no mistaking him for a human. A more-ness swelled about him. As it fades, blue eyes gone distant with remembering, Geralt finds he believes him. </p><p>But he had not finished the tale. </p><p>“And she saw you,” he parrots when the silence has grown too clinging. The spirit smiles brittly. “She did,” he says, and takes his cue.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <i>“She had watched me for decades as I lived within the echo of the waves barking off the stone, and sang in the mist there. No, don’t look so grim, it suits you too well for my tastes. I wasn’t completely alone. What the bard did not know all those years ago was that there are mermaids in that cove. We enjoyed each other’s company quite immensely. The harmonies we created! Ten, twelve, twenty voices rising in tandem as the tides, ululating, soaring, sighing, deeper than the dark waters, lighter than the foam lacing the waves. Oh, the nights we passed, all of us silver and amber and umber on the rocks. How the moonlight gilded their abalone-smooth breasts-”</i>
</p><p>(“The forest, spirit,” Geralt reminds him. He gets an annoyed hand waved at him for his troubles.</p><p>“No appreciation for an artfully woven scene, I see. Tell me, are all witchers so short-tempered,” he teases, “or is it just you’ve not the attention span?”</p><p>“Spirit,” Geralt rumbles, this time in warning. Another flap of his unconcerned hand.</p><p>“Yes, yes, I was getting to it. It. Well.” He sighs.) </p><p>
  <i>“The humans came with their axes, and the forest dwindled until only the last willow smoothed its lonely fingers over the brow of the waves there in my cove. It was sitting under it that I first heard Her whispers. Such a voice, Geralt. Never before had I heard one like it, and never since. She told me of how She had listened all those years as I sang, and how She mourned to never hear me again once Her final tree was cut from the embrace of the coast. How She sighed. The wind blew and moaned through that willow like a dirge.”</i>
</p><p>(“She pricked your bleeding heart. Played on your sympathy,” Geralt surmises, not flatteringly. The spirit turns from gazing soulfully out across the lagoon-- westward, towards the sea-- to glare at him balefully, beautifully wounded.)</p><p>
  <i>“And can you blame me? Pah, don’t answer, I can see that you can. Yes, my heart went out to her plea. She begged that I come visit her. She would gift me the legs of a man so that I could leave the waters behind and move freely through the trees. I was fascinated. I had never left the cove, nor walked as any of the elves or humans or dwarves did. I had no ability to shift my form then. I had never even considered it! And She was the first spirit to whom I had ever spoken. How different She was from my friends the mermaids; how like to me, or so I thought. I longed to visit Her and to ease Her loneliness. I loved that She had listened for so long. I loved that She loved me.”</i>
</p><p>(Geralt does not need to speak to earn this frown. “She did,” the spirit snaps.</p><p>“She did,” Geralt agrees mildly, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Enough to keep you.”</p><p>For a moment, the spirit trembles. Expressive to a fault. Geralt can see why the villagers long to make him smile, if this is the alternative. Hearts softer than his would not be able to stand the blow of those crumpled brows, the agonized dip of eyelashes on his cheek. More’s the better, he thinks firmly, without the sliver-stab of guilt under his skin; the better that a witcher’s heart does not ache. </p><p>“Yes,” he says at last, wet- and bright-eyed and, to Geralt’s surprise, unfaltering. “Enough to keep me.”)</p><p>
  <i>“She told me to wait for the new moon, when I would find in the grotto beneath the willow’s roots a lily growing. I found the crevice, and the lily. I did as She had told me. I pulled myself up the vines and roots of the willow with the nectar held on my tongue, and only when I was free of the water did I drink it, and found I had legs like a man.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“But the change had been painful and long, and the climb tiring, and the air so dry. So I laid amongst the roots to sleep and regain my strength. I would then follow my new friend’s voice into the trees, or so I thought. Yet when I awoke, I was here. Here I have remained.”</i>
</p><p>*</p><p>“And yes,” he snaps, “I have tried to walk from the forest.” </p><p>Geralt closes his frowning mouth. The spirit snorts. </p><p>“I can only leave the waters at night, and even then, I cannot walk far. Too far from the lagoon and every step will feel as if I tread on a bed of thorns. Even pushing through the pain-- and I have, too many nights to count-- there is no path out that will not turn me back. I cannot be carried from the forest, either, no matter how determined my carter. No matter how far I go, when the morning rises, I or my potential saviors are lost, and then I am back in the waters. Always, I return to these waters. For what I am, if I am anything, is a prisoner.”</p><p>His tale told, he sits back as if in punctuation. <i>Well?</i> His stubborn mouth unspeaking seems to ask. </p><p>Geralt finds the tale sits wrong with him.</p><p>It is not, he thinks, that it has the sound of a lie. And as a witcher trained to brutal honesty with himself as well as others, Geralt cannot say it is wholly that his sense of right and justice pricks at the fate, which it does. For all he might not experience those feelings of mortal men, in whatever fashion, he does feel some pity for the kept thing. He has always been a stalwart on the behalf of those unjustly kept. Princesses in towers, wolves in menagerie cages, and, now, spirits in lagoons. </p><p>But it is not sympathy or any doubt that unsettles him. It takes Geralt a moment to realize what. </p><p>“Most spirits of that age and breadth can’t lie. Not when they offer a greater magic, as it did in giving you legs. They can twist meaning, or hide it, but not lie outright. If she told you that your time would be to visit... there should be some way for you to be freed,” Geralt reasons. </p><p>“There are… stipulations, to the magic worked on me,” the spirit admits. “A way to leave Her hold and the lagoon. She explained them after. Just once.” He beats his fist once upon the stone. “Would that I had asked that She be more specific, that day under the willow. It had sounded quite simple.”</p><p>“It always does.” </p><p>They sit in silence for a while. It is nearly comfortable. </p><p>Geralt’s eyes wince and prick. The Cateye will wear off soon, and he will let it. There will be no battle here tonight, and there is light enough from the waters besides. He should have no trouble finding his way out of the forest. Perhaps, if he makes good enough time, there might be an ale for him at the festival. They won’t have reason to turn him away. He needn’t slay their precious spirit after all.</p><p>“So?” The spirit asks, breaking his half-hearted considerations. “Will you be killing me? I should hate for you to have walked all this way for nothing.” This, for once, is not a flirtation. The spirit smiles blandly. “Though I suppose if you hurry, you might still make the festival. It is tonight,” he asks Geralt’s momentary startlement, “is it not?”</p><p>For a moment, so surprised by his own thoughts spoken back to him, Geralt considers that maybe-- but no. He looks, and there is no tilt of victory to the look leveled on him. It had not read his thoughts. At least, not any one that he hadn’t shown clearly on his face, apparently. He had let his guard down. Sometime during his story, Geralt wonders with a foreboding inkling of his fate? Sometime before?</p><p>Geralt realizes he has already made a decision and, sighing gustily, unslings his swords resignedly. He gives himself exactly one moment the mourn the ale he won’t be drinking. Then:</p><p>“What stipulations?” he grunts. The man jolts from his pointed slump. The ungracefulness of his gaping speaks to his real shock as Geralt settles the swords on a bed of ferns and his gauntlets atop. He himself doesn’t speak, though his mouth moves. Opening. Closing. Smiling. Geralt dodges directly catching his gaze like one avoids a direct look at the sun and clears his throat, saying to his chin (which is just about the only safe place to look which isn’t his eyes), “The role of a witcher is not only to slay beasts and monsters. We are expert curse breakers. This sounds close enough.”</p><p>“Even if I’m one of the monsters you might otherwise slay?” he lilts, like a man who knows already. Geralt scowls at being made to say it.</p><p>“You’re a spirit, not a monster. You’re hurting no one. If I can free you, I will.”</p><p>Now it is Geralt’s turn to jump. </p><p>“Thank you,” the spirit murmurs as soft and rasping as his fingertips across the back of Geralt’s hand. He leans close enough that Geralt wants to turn away-- not only for himself. He knows how his eyes and face will look from so close. The sickness of Cateye still burns through him; more so, when it is burning out. The thin, corpse-colored skin around his eyes does nothing to hide the blackness of the veins there. It seems almost indecent to expose a spirit infatuated with beauty and humanity (in fact, a spirit born from it) to such ugliness. “But I- it--” he stutters.</p><p>Geralt looks back then. Not once to this point has the spirit ever stumbled his words. So he looks, and the despair so clear in his face is all he needs to see.</p><p>“But you can’t tell me,” Geralt concludes, and curses, and cuts his throbbing eyes back to the trees. “The magic prevents you from revealing how to break it. Of course.” Nothing can ever be easy.</p><p>The spirit bobs to the side, trying to catch Geralt’s gaze. Resolutely, Geralt turns his head.</p><p>“Witcher?” A moment. “Geralt? Why do you turn your face? Is there something you hear? Or see?”</p><p>“No,” Geralt grits out. He winces at the throb and sear of shifting blood and inflamed blood vessels. He raises a hand over his eyes when the spirit presses closer chasing his gaze like a child. He snaps, “Will you stay there?”</p><p>“No! Let me see what’s wrong.” A hand grabs his wrist. Geralt flinches.</p><p>“Don’t-”</p><p>“Touch you?” The spirit challenges.</p><p>“-look!” Geralt snarls, and closes his mouth tight immediately after, breathing hard out through his nose. A flush of nausea goes through him, followed by a dowsing of cold sweat. Without battle adrenaline to cushion the full extent of the toxicity symptoms, he feels every shift of sickness. Made more uncomfortable for the unfortunate honesty.</p><p>A thumb swipes along Geralt’s wrist, caressing across tendon and bone.</p><p>“Your lovely eyes? Why not? Are they hurting you?”</p><p>“Not lovely,” Geralt grunts, “and not mine. The effect of the potion is wearing off.” Another throb, a flush of fever-hot blood draining from his cheeks. The muscles of his back ripple before he forces each to release one by one.</p><p>“You didn’t answer me. Are they hurting you?” </p><p>Silence.</p><p>“Can I see?”</p><p><i>Stubborn.</i> “You won’t like it.” No one does.</p><p>Geralt can hear him shift, him in his bare skin and naught else.</p><p>“Can I see?” the spirit repeats, so softly that he could be talking to one of his kissing villagers. “Your eyes. Please.”</p><p>It twinges to have them open as his pupils begin to contract and close and the irises shift back into place. Geralt turns to look at him anyway and bears it to punish the spirit for asking. To see him reel back in disgust. He had acted too long as if he spoke to a man and not a witcher and, Geralt thinks, he needs reminding.</p><p>Only, as the night leans in on its shadowed haunches to fill in spaces that had been bright as noon not seconds before, and as the lagoon and the forest and the man with lilies in his skin go pearlescent and cool blue, the spirit startles. He watches unbreathing as the pain and therefore the blackness begins to recede, the shift complete.</p><p>But he does not pull back. His eyelashes splay open their beautiful, greedy, grasping fingers, and he breathes, “You have brought me a gift. You just didn’t know it.” Geralt stares.</p><p>“What?” </p><p>At Geralt’s twitch his expression breaks open, not cool at all. He beams rose and peach and shell-pink warmth. His fingers weave their way into the hair behind Geralt’s ear.</p><p>“My name is Jaskier,” he says.</p><p>And that is when he dips forward and kisses Geralt on the mouth.</p><p>*</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Writing Jaskier's origin was honestly such a treat. </p><p>Please enjoy!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Finally I've got around to moving this little collection... fic?... over to AO3. I've been in such a rut creatively, it feels weird to be doing something so productive. I feel almost like a liar because it's not newly written, but something from tumblr. Ah, man.</p><p>Anyway, I hope you enjoy this idea as much as I do! What do you think? Thank you so much for reading everyone, I hope you're well. Feel free to comment or to message me on my tumblr, iamtaran, if you want to yell about fic or if you need someone to hang out with!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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